Her Love for Me
by theredhood
Summary: Nakago/Soi. An older short short that I decided to post.


Her Love for Me  
author: the red hood  
rating: PG  
??-??-00  
  
I was shocked. She had actually sacrificed her life for mine.   
  
She had cried out my name, and I spun around. There was the sickening sound of metal entering flesh as the sword meant for me impaled her body.  
  
"Nakago...Nakago... Ever since that day...I...wanted to see you..." She leaned towards me until our lips were almost touching. I stared at her. I felt her warm breath on my face as she spoke again. "And my final...service to you... I...love you..." She collapsed into my arms.  
  
"Soi."  
  
If someone had asked me anytime before that moment whether I had thought she loved me enough to sacrifice her life for me, I would have regarded him with disdain. People did what I asked because they feared me, not because of love for me. She gave me her body to enhance my powers. But love? Love was a weakness. Love was the last thing I wanted in my life, and I did nothing to encourage it. Why would she give her heart to me? Foolish girl...  
  
"But to reach your heart...your feelings... Do you remember? When we first met several years ago? Ever since that time, you were the only one for me!"  
  
"There is only one person who can satisfy me. You are not her."  
  
I had spoken the truth to Soi. Only one person could give me what I wanted, what I had strived for ever since I had been taken in by the emperor of Kutou. Only one person could grant my wish.  
  
I don't know why I hefted her body into my arms. For some reason, I couldn't leave her in the battlefield with the bodies of the soldiers who had died. It didn't...seem right.  
  
I did remember. The moment I met her. She had been the tiniest little thing. She had reminded me of myself. Used, abused, and all alone. Her pimp had been threatening her to take her clothes off when I happened by. I laid him flat on the ground with a blow to the back of his ugly head. I remember thinking as I walked away that it would not be that way for long. When the maiden came, I would be ready.  
  
I carried her body all the way back to Kutou.  
  
After I killed the emperor, I decided I would bury Soi before I departed for Lady Yui's world. I chose a secluded place in the forest near the palace in which to bury her. When I was younger, I used to go there when I could get away from the emperor and his lackeys to think and to practice my powers.   
  
I dug the hole myself to give myself the time to collect my thoughts and to spare my abilities for the fight I knew was coming. One thing about Suzaku's seishi was that they never gave up. An admirable trait. It would do them little good with Suzaku sealed away. Even if it were not so, they were weak, just like all the other humans in the world. They let emotions like love and friendship, jealousy and revenge control their lives and their actions. And again, there it is. Love...  
  
The ground was soft in the location I had chosen, so the digging of the grave did not take very long. I picked up Soi once more. Her skin was cold and tinged with the gray pallor of death. What struck me was the look on her face. She looked so peaceful. If...when I had done what I wanted to do, when my wish was granted, would the same look cover my face?  
  
I must have been all she had. She gave her all to me, and even to her last breath, she was true to the love she professed to me.  
  
I knew what I wanted, and nothing could change that. But it baffled me. How could an emotion as base as love give a person such contentment even at the moment of her death? And why me?? I never asked for her love. I never wanted her love. I never needed her love...  
  
I laid her into the grave, and looked down at her for the last time.  
  
Soi.  
  
It took me even less time to fill in the grave than it had to dig it. I marked the mound with some stones and a stick. I took the ribbon that had fallen from her hair on the battlefield in Konan from where I had stored it in my armor. I tied it around the stick, and then I stepped back to view my handiwork.  
  
I had sworn to myself that I would never be like them. I would never succumb to such emotions. Emotions only made everything worse. They twisted one's perception of the world and made one perform actions he would not were he under a sane mind. Never...  
  
I lifted a hand to my face.  
  
Then why...were my cheeks wet?  
  
  



End file.
